Editor’s note: The names in asterisks were altered for security and privacy issues. This is a story conducted by a reporter who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, due to their status...

I have watched “The Wizard of Oz” more times than I can count.  Growing up, it was my movie, the one I returned to again and again, curled up on the couch, completely convinced that somewhere beyond...

I still have saved in my notes what I wrote as soon as I boarded the first plane of my life. It was August 12, 2022, around 7 p.m. My destination was Lexington, Kentucky, my first time in the United States,...

I walked into the Kernel office for the first time in February 2023 looking for an opportunity and will be walking out with three years I'll never forget, with titles including editor, friend and husband...

Telling stories has been my favorite thing for longer than I can remember. It started with hearing my dad read me stories at bedtime and as I grew, I wanted to be in his shoes. Telling those stories.  As...

My time at the kernel has felt untraditional. See, i’m not a writer, and being a part of a newsroom was not where I saw myself spending my time when I started college. Nonetheless, being surrounded by...

The cards that life dealt Ray Davis were not in his favor. “Every childhood friend of mine is dead or in jail. I’ve watched some of my best friends get killed. I've been around them one day, the...

Dear readers, As I'm looking at my cap and gown while writing this letter I keep thinking about all the times that this journalism degree made it so damn hard to get.  From the countless nights...

As "I Lived" by OneRepublic played through the speakers at Kentucky Children’s Hospital, Ella Ferris stood in the hallway shaking, waiting for the moment she had imagined for five years. Ahead of...

The ball is served, the gun goes off, she sticks the landing and he glides through the water. It's silent for a moment, you can hear a pin drop, but then the crowd goes wild, adorned in Kentucky blue,...

Every night, there was a helicopter in the apartment on the fourth floor. At least that’s what it sounded like. The noise came from a fan with no cap on it in a house in Caracas, Venezuela.  There...

Hooves pound into the dirt hard enough to shake the stands. A gate swings open with a metallic snap. Somewhere in the middle of it all, a child yells, a crowd rises and another rider charges into the...